Good SciFi doesn't have to be expensive to produce. Good SciFi just needs good writers with an excellent imagination.
Do you remember the old Dr. Who shows? Not the new stuff. The old shows made 20-some years ago. That was GREAT SciFi and their budget was very small. Consequently the special effects were awful, the acting terrible, the camera work questionable, etc., etc., but the STORIES were fantastic. That is what made that show great. That is what makes SciFi great in general.
How long are these shoes expected to last under normal use? I have shoes that I bought four years ago, and aside from replacing the insoles a few times, they're perfectly fine. No reason to toss them out. I'm not sure how viable a product these would be if they need to be replaced every few months because they're disintegrating.
They used to be, perhaps. Used to be that every mall had a video game arcade, but they've all closed down. The closest thing I have available is a Dave and Buster's, more than an hour's drive away. Consequently, I only head there with a group of friends a few times a year. Even that is looking empty these days. This might be because they haven't changed any of their machines in well over three years though...
But, at the same time, if you want to game with your friends then your PC/XBox/PS/etc. is right there in your home and you don't have to feed it quarters every time you want a little bit of joy. There's more variety. I think the sad reality is that arcades are too expensive for what they offer compared to what is available without ever leaving your house.
Damn, I'm very impressed. You saved me some time putting that together. (o: Unfortunately, the drones that follow the crap sites like MM simply don't ever listen.
This is what Glenn does constantly. One of the things you will hear him say on his show repeatedly is, "Don't believe it just because I said it. Go look it up for yourselves." He actively encourages people to do their own research, which is something I very rarely see other radio/television hosts do.
Sorry, but Media Matters consistently and purposefully takes Glenn out of context. They will take short quotes with no surrounding material, which is dangerous to do - Glenn uses a lot of sarcasm on his show, and his staff jokes around a lot as well. When MM cherry picks their quotes it is very easy to paint the entire show as some David Koresh waiting to happen.
As far as I'm concerned, MM has zero credibility because they do this so often. Not just to Glenn either - they do it to anyone they simply don't like. It's wrong, and I'm surprised that people take MM seriously at all anymore.
You can look this up for yourself if you don't believe me, but I'll help you in case it's too difficult.
Want to make fun of Glenn because he cries on radio and television? That's fine. Disagree with him? That's fine too. Don't believe it when he reports on something, provides his sources, and tells his audience to look it up for themselves? Okay, whatever. But don't lie about him and what he says. When you start to attack the person using false pretenses all you do is lose credibility.
I like the idea of a death penalty as an ultimate punishment, but you are correct: There have been too many mistakes in the past. Too many innocent people have been killed and later found to be innocent. I haven't seen the studies that show the death penalty having no effect on crime rates, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.
After all, the people who commit offenses heinous enough to be eligible for the death penalty probably don't care. Those that do are very likely not to commit the crime in the first place. Just personal speculation, mind you.
As you mentioned, matching DNA can fabricated now in a lab. There was a story on/. a while ago, I believe. It is now possible for someone with enough money and connections to plant DNA evidence somewhere - and we want to use this as a reliable basis to put someone to death? Granted, I don't see this happening in a bar fight situation, but still. The fact that it is possible is something that should be considered.
I wrote in support of him as an Ohio resident. I very rarely contact representatives outside of my district, but when one of them does something spectacular I will anyway. I encourage others to do so as well.
When an elected official does something that you strongly support or oppose you should let them know - especially if that person is in your district. How else are they supposed to know if what they're doing is pissing people off or making them happy?
A lot of us fill out a ballot then go home and bitch and moan until the next time we fill out a ballot. Then we go home and bitch and moan some more.
If you want to fix things (for your own personal understanding of "fix") you need to be more involved than that.
Too small indeed; I agree with you completely. Small cars are more dangerous. They found this out during studies of the effects of the CAFE standards:
More shockingly, increased CAFÉ standards also increase fatalities in automobile accidents. This is because automobile companies meet the new fuel standards by building smaller cars and trucks built of lighter but more fragile material, which protects motorists less during automobile accidents. Source
People can find more sources for that information if they want. There's a ton of them.
Additionally, light cars might be fine for those who putz around warm weather climates, but I live up in the snow belt of America. The high winds can blow lighter cars all over the place, including right off the road. I have to drop sand bags in my car during the winter months because my 2005 Focus, a 4-door car, is too light for safe driving in certain conditions.
And, I do not believe that the government should be handing out subsidies. Let a private investor carry that cost. Why should the nation pay for someone who can afford a $30,000 car in the first place? If a company wants to take a large loan to subsidize the cost of the first batches of vehicles, that's fine. That's their business. There's a good chance that it will work, because otherwise someone wouldn't have put up the money.
Make an electric car that I can afford and suits my needs and I will buy one. Right now they're just not viable. One million of them in the next few years? Yeah right. They can't even sell 500 units of the Leaf and Volt COMBINED in one month:
It’s official, there are now mass-produced all-electric vehicles on the streets of America thanks to Nissan North America. Yesterday, automakers posted their final December 2010 sales figures and for the first time, the Nissan Leaf appeared on this list. During the month, the company sold 19 Nissan Leaf models to customers in select cities including Olivier Chalouhi. Chalouhi, who lives in Redwood City, California, was the first Nissan Leaf owner in the United States.
The other much-anticipated vehicle release of late 2010, the Chevy Volt, fared better in sales than the Nissan Leaf despite its higher price tag. During December 2010, Chevy sold 326 Volt models. Determining the owner of the first Chevy Volt is a bit more difficult than figuring out who owned the first Nissan Leaf. Source
Why aren't people interested in the Leaf?
Maybe it has to do with the 100-mile range (and that's with a new battery). Maybe it's the 16-18 hours needed to fully recharge time at home, with the $2,000+ charging station that you need to buy in addition to the car. Oh, but the commercial charging stations are faster, don't worry. They only take 30 minutes. Want to turn on the heater because it's cold outside? I hope you don't have to go far, because the heater is electric too.
That doesn't sound like a car I want.
I'm not trying to poo-poo the concept of the electric vehicle. I think they are definitely the future of the car once we have the proper technology. The technology simply isn't here yet, and the government trying to force it down everyone's throats isn't going to help. Maybe in ten years. Maybe in twenty. But not now.
Side rant: It is unsurprising, but still disgusting, that politicians go on and on about how the upper class doesn't "pay their fair share" and how the poor are exploited and blah blah blah, and then they want to subsidize people to buy expensive cars......Cars that only wealthy people can afford in the first place.
I would be very willing to run something akin to Folding@Home where I get paid for my idle computing power. Why build a super computing cluster when, for some applications, the idle CPU power of ten million consumer machine is perfectly adequate? Yes, there needs to be some way to verify the work, otherwise you could have cheating or people trolling the system, but it can't be too hard a problem to solve.
You're not forced to choose between the least of two evils. You actually have a lot of choices as far as voting goes. You can vote for the Communist Party candidate, your next door neighbor, or Santa Claus if you really choose to. There were quite a few people running for President that weren't in either major party, and they could be found listed on most ballets. Don't see who you want? Use the write-in section. That is what it is for.
Right now a lot of people are very fed up with the two party system and are giving the lesser known "third parties" a far more serious look. The "Tea Party" is proof of this. Agree with them or not, they have given the finger to the Democrat party AND the Republican party and have found people that they believe in - and they now have those people holding office. It didn't take very long for that movement to get off the ground either. Two years ago they were nothing. Today, they're a small but represented political force.
You're not going to get a major third or fourth party overnight. It takes some time to build everything up, but I don't see why it isn't possible - except for people who refuse to look beyond the D and R, and bitch and moan when they force themselves to believe that D and R are the only two choices.
As far as I'm concerned, if you can't find someone that you want in office, then you're not looking hard enough. If nothing else, vote for yourself.
Coming armed with facts and logic is the best way to go - as long as you're not completely blinded by them. Everything has an explanation; it's just a matter of finding it, which can be very difficult. Just because the explanation is not obvious or cannot be found doesn't mean that an event didn't happen.
Atlantis is mentioned by quite a few historical records. We can't find it. Does that mean that it never existed, or does it mean that it existed at one time and we just can't find it?
The 12/12/2012 date being generated by multiple cultures all around the world before they could have had contact with each other - just coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. We can't explain that one either, but it is still there.
It really irks me when Super Logic Science Types come along and that that X or Y isn't possible because of this scientific theory or this line of logic. If everyone in history went around saying "That isn't possible" instead of "How could that be possible" or "How can this be made possible" then we wouldn't be anywhere near as advanced as we are today. Skepticism is healthy and good, but far too many Super Logic Science Types have nothing but disdain for anything a little "weird".
"This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels [...] [We have the] most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. (source)
Men and women were pretty heroic in World War II and the Korean War, just to name two. DADT wasn't in effect back then. I bet that GLBT and everything else were serving in the military back then, too. Hard to believe, I know... But I guess we are somehow more professional because we don't allow gay people to serve?
Speaking of professional... You know what would happen if you did this in a business? You'd get your ass sued right off, and rightly so.
The problem with telecommuting is that managers don't get that "face time" that they do desperately love. It's a control thing.
I'm lucky in that regard. Right now I spend two days in the office, and the other three working at home. It's a deal I negotiated with my current employer when I was offered work elsewhere. It works well - the management gets that warm fuzzy feeling that I'm a real person, and the other three days of the week I can actually get work done.
I have suggested multiple times that my company allow everyone to do this, perhaps after an initial onboarding period of six months or whatever. They keep having to buy more office space, and they recently transformed an area of cubes into one of those open floor plans. Everyone hates it, production has gone down the drain.
Anyway, the management always says, "Well, how do I know if people are working if they're not in the office?" The answer is simple: Are they meeting their deadlines? Can they show you the work they have done? If not, they're not working, and sitting in the office won't help that anyway. Boot them and get someone who will do the work.
I had the exact same board when I was younger. I loved it, though I admit that I didn't learn very much from it. I just had fun doing the projects and changing some of the wires around to see what would happen. I think I was a little -too- young at the time to really get much more than that out of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Good SciFi doesn't have to be expensive to produce. Good SciFi just needs good writers with an excellent imagination.
Do you remember the old Dr. Who shows? Not the new stuff. The old shows made 20-some years ago. That was GREAT SciFi and their budget was very small. Consequently the special effects were awful, the acting terrible, the camera work questionable, etc., etc., but the STORIES were fantastic. That is what made that show great. That is what makes SciFi great in general.
How long are these shoes expected to last under normal use? I have shoes that I bought four years ago, and aside from replacing the insoles a few times, they're perfectly fine. No reason to toss them out. I'm not sure how viable a product these would be if they need to be replaced every few months because they're disintegrating.
They used to be, perhaps. Used to be that every mall had a video game arcade, but they've all closed down. The closest thing I have available is a Dave and Buster's, more than an hour's drive away. Consequently, I only head there with a group of friends a few times a year. Even that is looking empty these days. This might be because they haven't changed any of their machines in well over three years though...
But, at the same time, if you want to game with your friends then your PC/XBox/PS/etc. is right there in your home and you don't have to feed it quarters every time you want a little bit of joy. There's more variety. I think the sad reality is that arcades are too expensive for what they offer compared to what is available without ever leaving your house.
Damn, I'm very impressed. You saved me some time putting that together. (o: Unfortunately, the drones that follow the crap sites like MM simply don't ever listen.
This is what Glenn does constantly. One of the things you will hear him say on his show repeatedly is, "Don't believe it just because I said it. Go look it up for yourselves." He actively encourages people to do their own research, which is something I very rarely see other radio/television hosts do.
Sorry, but Media Matters consistently and purposefully takes Glenn out of context. They will take short quotes with no surrounding material, which is dangerous to do - Glenn uses a lot of sarcasm on his show, and his staff jokes around a lot as well. When MM cherry picks their quotes it is very easy to paint the entire show as some David Koresh waiting to happen.
As far as I'm concerned, MM has zero credibility because they do this so often. Not just to Glenn either - they do it to anyone they simply don't like. It's wrong, and I'm surprised that people take MM seriously at all anymore.
You can look this up for yourself if you don't believe me, but I'll help you in case it's too difficult.
Want to make fun of Glenn because he cries on radio and television? That's fine. Disagree with him? That's fine too. Don't believe it when he reports on something, provides his sources, and tells his audience to look it up for themselves? Okay, whatever. But don't lie about him and what he says. When you start to attack the person using false pretenses all you do is lose credibility.
I like the idea of a death penalty as an ultimate punishment, but you are correct: There have been too many mistakes in the past. Too many innocent people have been killed and later found to be innocent. I haven't seen the studies that show the death penalty having no effect on crime rates, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were true.
After all, the people who commit offenses heinous enough to be eligible for the death penalty probably don't care. Those that do are very likely not to commit the crime in the first place. Just personal speculation, mind you.
As you mentioned, matching DNA can fabricated now in a lab. There was a story on /. a while ago, I believe. It is now possible for someone with enough money and connections to plant DNA evidence somewhere - and we want to use this as a reliable basis to put someone to death? Granted, I don't see this happening in a bar fight situation, but still. The fact that it is possible is something that should be considered.
It just doesn't make sense.
I wrote in support of him as an Ohio resident. I very rarely contact representatives outside of my district, but when one of them does something spectacular I will anyway. I encourage others to do so as well.
When an elected official does something that you strongly support or oppose you should let them know - especially if that person is in your district. How else are they supposed to know if what they're doing is pissing people off or making them happy?
A lot of us fill out a ballot then go home and bitch and moan until the next time we fill out a ballot. Then we go home and bitch and moan some more.
If you want to fix things (for your own personal understanding of "fix") you need to be more involved than that.
Justified or not, it shows arrogance and a lack of class. Perhaps I'm insane but I do expect better.
And fish is a vegetable.
Why wait? The future is already here! The 8 Coil Shakti headband can be yours for only $285!
Or you can just tape some kitchen magnets to your head and probably get the same effect.
Too small indeed; I agree with you completely. Small cars are more dangerous. They found this out during studies of the effects of the CAFE standards:
People can find more sources for that information if they want. There's a ton of them.
Additionally, light cars might be fine for those who putz around warm weather climates, but I live up in the snow belt of America. The high winds can blow lighter cars all over the place, including right off the road. I have to drop sand bags in my car during the winter months because my 2005 Focus, a 4-door car, is too light for safe driving in certain conditions.
And, I do not believe that the government should be handing out subsidies. Let a private investor carry that cost. Why should the nation pay for someone who can afford a $30,000 car in the first place? If a company wants to take a large loan to subsidize the cost of the first batches of vehicles, that's fine. That's their business. There's a good chance that it will work, because otherwise someone wouldn't have put up the money.
Make an electric car that I can afford and suits my needs and I will buy one. Right now they're just not viable. One million of them in the next few years? Yeah right. They can't even sell 500 units of the Leaf and Volt COMBINED in one month:
Why aren't people interested in the Leaf?
Maybe it has to do with the 100-mile range (and that's with a new battery). Maybe it's the 16-18 hours needed to fully recharge time at home, with the $2,000+ charging station that you need to buy in addition to the car. Oh, but the commercial charging stations are faster, don't worry. They only take 30 minutes. Want to turn on the heater because it's cold outside? I hope you don't have to go far, because the heater is electric too.
That doesn't sound like a car I want.
I'm not trying to poo-poo the concept of the electric vehicle. I think they are definitely the future of the car once we have the proper technology. The technology simply isn't here yet, and the government trying to force it down everyone's throats isn't going to help. Maybe in ten years. Maybe in twenty. But not now.
Side rant: It is unsurprising, but still disgusting, that politicians go on and on about how the upper class doesn't "pay their fair share" and how the poor are exploited and blah blah blah, and then they want to subsidize people to buy expensive cars... ...Cars that only wealthy people can afford in the first place.
I would be very willing to run something akin to Folding@Home where I get paid for my idle computing power. Why build a super computing cluster when, for some applications, the idle CPU power of ten million consumer machine is perfectly adequate? Yes, there needs to be some way to verify the work, otherwise you could have cheating or people trolling the system, but it can't be too hard a problem to solve.
Absolutely. It makes me sad.
Also, it is difficult to see links inside of the story text. Please make them darker, or bold, or underline, or something please. It makes me sad.
Things seems slower as well, which also makes me sad.
So, in summary - too much white space, not enough contrast, links hard to see, and slow.
Otherwise I like it. I really do. Fix some of those minor things and I'll be a happy bear. (o:
You're not forced to choose between the least of two evils. You actually have a lot of choices as far as voting goes. You can vote for the Communist Party candidate, your next door neighbor, or Santa Claus if you really choose to. There were quite a few people running for President that weren't in either major party, and they could be found listed on most ballets. Don't see who you want? Use the write-in section. That is what it is for.
Right now a lot of people are very fed up with the two party system and are giving the lesser known "third parties" a far more serious look. The "Tea Party" is proof of this. Agree with them or not, they have given the finger to the Democrat party AND the Republican party and have found people that they believe in - and they now have those people holding office. It didn't take very long for that movement to get off the ground either. Two years ago they were nothing. Today, they're a small but represented political force.
You're not going to get a major third or fourth party overnight. It takes some time to build everything up, but I don't see why it isn't possible - except for people who refuse to look beyond the D and R, and bitch and moan when they force themselves to believe that D and R are the only two choices.
As far as I'm concerned, if you can't find someone that you want in office, then you're not looking hard enough. If nothing else, vote for yourself.
It also keeps my finger smudges out of my line of sight. I hate touch screen anything. They always end up dirty.
Coming armed with facts and logic is the best way to go - as long as you're not completely blinded by them. Everything has an explanation; it's just a matter of finding it, which can be very difficult. Just because the explanation is not obvious or cannot be found doesn't mean that an event didn't happen.
Atlantis is mentioned by quite a few historical records. We can't find it. Does that mean that it never existed, or does it mean that it existed at one time and we just can't find it?
The 12/12/2012 date being generated by multiple cultures all around the world before they could have had contact with each other - just coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. We can't explain that one either, but it is still there.
It really irks me when Super Logic Science Types come along and that that X or Y isn't possible because of this scientific theory or this line of logic. If everyone in history went around saying "That isn't possible" instead of "How could that be possible" or "How can this be made possible" then we wouldn't be anywhere near as advanced as we are today. Skepticism is healthy and good, but far too many Super Logic Science Types have nothing but disdain for anything a little "weird".
Men and women were pretty heroic in World War II and the Korean War, just to name two. DADT wasn't in effect back then. I bet that GLBT and everything else were serving in the military back then, too. Hard to believe, I know... But I guess we are somehow more professional because we don't allow gay people to serve?
Speaking of professional... You know what would happen if you did this in a business? You'd get your ass sued right off, and rightly so.
Wrong. This is the USA, and antitrust law is not enforced here, at all.
ADM would like to have a word with you.
The options in my area are:
Road Runner and dial-up.
Most of America has only one option when it comes to high speed internet access and it comes from the cable provider.
A Sarah Palin tag on this story? Seriously? I can understand not liking her but damn, that makes Slashdot just look childish.
The problem with telecommuting is that managers don't get that "face time" that they do desperately love. It's a control thing.
I'm lucky in that regard. Right now I spend two days in the office, and the other three working at home. It's a deal I negotiated with my current employer when I was offered work elsewhere. It works well - the management gets that warm fuzzy feeling that I'm a real person, and the other three days of the week I can actually get work done.
I have suggested multiple times that my company allow everyone to do this, perhaps after an initial onboarding period of six months or whatever. They keep having to buy more office space, and they recently transformed an area of cubes into one of those open floor plans. Everyone hates it, production has gone down the drain.
Anyway, the management always says, "Well, how do I know if people are working if they're not in the office?" The answer is simple: Are they meeting their deadlines? Can they show you the work they have done? If not, they're not working, and sitting in the office won't help that anyway. Boot them and get someone who will do the work.
Parable of the Broken Window. It is difficult to do clearly with text, but he was being sarcastic.
Or you could just use cash, and not pay for all of the expenses of the machines and the staffing, plus not have the big brother factor.
I had the exact same board when I was younger. I loved it, though I admit that I didn't learn very much from it. I just had fun doing the projects and changing some of the wires around to see what would happen. I think I was a little -too- young at the time to really get much more than that out of it.